Close My Eyes
by SenSageUn
Summary: Koishi Komeiji has been hated all her life for her Third Eye, and she's fed up with it. Oneshot, somewhat graphic content near the end.


**Gensokyo Year 108**

_hi my name is koishi i'm 4 years old and i have a sister and a mother and father and lots of pets my sisters name is satori shes really __prity__ pretty and shes 4 years older than i am. she has pretty pink hair and eyes and her __3th__ 3rd eye is big and yellow_

_woops sorry i mean her FACE eyes are pink but her 3rd eye is yellow_

_i cant wait til our 3rd eyes open satori says mother and father can __reed__ read peoples minds and thots. I want to do that! they can talk to __are__ our pets and tell satori and me what there saying I wish I could do that_

_my father is really really tall and hes the king of the world. he says theres another world above the cieling but he dosnt tell me about it. He says the other world has a lot of lite and a son and i told him that lots of peple have sons but he lafed at me and i don't know why_

_my mother is queen of the world and my dad is king of the world but they dont go outside our casl much my mother says people dontt like us but I don't __no__ know why_

**Gensokyo Year 112**

_Hi I'm Koishi Komeiji and my teacher wants me to write about my family so I'm going too._

_My sister's name is Satori, but we're all Satori! Hahahaha I mean I'm a satori but my sister is SATORI because that's her name but we ARE satoris because its our specie like humans and cats and stuff._

_Satori is 12 years old and I'm 8 and she has her 3__rd__ eye and I want mine! She can hear what people think but she says it's bad and people won't like her. Well I love Satori and she knows it cause she can read my thoughts!_

_My mother and father are king and queen of the Underground. We live in the Palace of the Earth Spirits which is on top of the __ench__ entrance to the Lazy Fires. That's what Mother told me they were called and she told me to never go down there. I love my mother and father too so I never went down there. My cat Orin did thog, and I told mother and father but they said it was okay for her to do that. I love Orin too and all my other pets but Orin is my favorite! My other favorite is Okuu. She has a big name but Satori told me to call her Okuu because I can't remember her real name. I feel bad about that and I __with__ wish I could remember her real name_

_Well that's my family but I also have lots of friends here too! I like playing with them at school but my father won't let them come to our castle because he says he dosn't want to scare them. A lot of them miss Satori because when her 3rd eye opened my parents wouldn't let her go to school. Now she's homeschool by Mother. _

_I miss going to school with my sister. I really love her!_

**Gensokyo Year 115**

_Dear Diary,_

_Hi, it's Koishi again! I guess I don't need that part though, because who else would it be?_

_I haven't gone to school in a while…ever since my 3__rd__ Eye opened like I told you before, Mother and Father haven't let me go. It's really silly because all my friends are at school and Father doesn't let them come over to the Palace, so what am I supposed to do?_

_Satori and I have been spending a lot more time together. I mean we've always been together, since you know, she's my sister, of course I'd stay with her! But I've been with her even more now! It's really weird since we can always know what the other is thinking now…Satori once said that I was being an annoying brat and I told her "hey you can't say that I'm your sister!" and then she was embarrassed and stuff and apologized._

_Oh oh oh! I forgot to say! I can talk to Okuu and Orin now! I love them. They're my best friends, well besides Satori of course. Okuu wants me to call her by her real name, but I still can't remember it that well…it's Utsuho, I think? Whatever. I'll ask her next time! Thank Hakurei that Orin is easy to remember! She told me she chose Orin because she doesn't like how long her name is. Hahahaha, Orin~ She has two tails, did you ever notice that? I guess you wouldn't, you don't have eyes. Silly me! _

_It's really late…well, that's what the clock told me. In my old History class they told us that when youkai lived aboveground they had the Sun to help them tell time. Okuu thought that was the funniest thing ever! _

_~Koishi~_

**Gensokyo Year 117**

_Dear Diary,_

_Mother yelled at me today! I got bored sitting in the house because there's nothing to do here and there's a carnival in the village, so I went outside for a little bit. I was just walking around when I tripped and fell! That's all it was! It was just an accident! I saw someone laughing behind me but I saw them watching a show so that's why they were laughing. My 3__rd__ Eye messed up though and one of the laughing men's thoughts came out like he intentionally pushed me over! But that's not true! I didn't do anything to him so he shouldn't have any reason to do it to me and I didn't get pushed, I TRIPPED!_

_I just kept walking and found a place serving drinks. I asked them if I could have a glass of water, since I had money with me (I AM the princess of the Palace of the Earth Spirits, after all!). He laughed at me and told me to go away. I guess it was because it was a bar, and they couldn't serve to minors like me, or they just didn't have water. I was polite and walked away. My 3__rd__ Eye messed up again, though…I don't know why. It's never messed up before…maybe it was the fact that it was so loud at the carnival?_

_Since I was alone, I was gonna go back soon, 'cause Mother told me bad things can happen if you stay out by yourself too long. I saw this one girl playing a game where you take a rock and throw it at some bottles and try to knock them over. I watched her play for a while, because she was really good! She picked up these REALLY huge rocks right off of the ground and almost took down the stand! Afterwards I tried talking to her, but she looked at me and started yelling at me. She sounded kind of drunk though, so I asked her if she was drunk and told her that little girls shouldn't be drunk like that. Because they shouldn't, right?_

_Then she told me she was going to stab me with her two giant horns. _

_I don't think I ever ran faster in my life then! I was really scared the whole time! I don't know if she chased me back but I just ran as fast as I could. I think I tripped over a rock again, near this other stand, but I got back to the Palace._

_And then Mother YELLED at me! Nothing happened to me, so she shouldn't be freaking out over it! She's not letting me leave the second floor of the Palace. Well, she's stupid, 'cause that means I still have Satori with me! Satori's still my best friend, even though she can be really cold sometimes. With our 3__rd__ Eyes, we can hear each other's thoughts, and I know that she loves me and I love her._

_I really do love Satori…she's my sister and I love her so much. She understands me. Why can't Mother and Father understand me? I hate them!_

_~Koishi~_

**Gensokyo Year 120**

_**I HATE EVERYONE!**_

_WHY IS EVERYONE SO STUPID?_

_I'm sorry, Diary…today was horrible. I've been crying and crying and trying to keep Mother and Father from finding out. But Satori knows. She always knows what I'm thinking and what happens to me._

_I hate being cooped up here. I can't do anything. Mother and Father keep me here because they want to keep me safe, but all they're doing is ostracizing me even more!_

…_but they're right. They're absolutely right._

_I went outside again today. I got caught by Orin on the way out, but I made her promise not to tell anyone. She said she wouldn't (and she didn't, because when I got back I didn't hear her say anything about ratting me out). _

_I didn't know where to go, since I've been inside the Palace for the past five years, so how would I know what's hot in town? I just walked until I saw a crowded place and walked in. It was a bar/restaurant, naturally. I sat down at a table and waited to be served. Instead, the manager came over. She asked me to leave…she seemed scared. I asked her why and she wouldn't tell me. Just told me to leave. I hate that. She knew I could read her mind. "Go away go away go away" was all she thought. _

_I didn't leave. She left and a waiter came over. He seemed fine until he got close to me. His thought was "Greeeeaaaat, cute chick here tonight, nice white hair, that's exoti- whoa." He stopped and stared at me and I stared back at him. He spoke to me and also asked me to leave. I told him I wasn't and that I wanted a drink that instant. He grumbled and glared at me and his _thoughts_, my Hakurei. I wanted to leave but I couldn't. I had to prove that I was just like them, and that my 3__rd__ Eye shouldn't make me any different._

_Then my chair came out from under me. _

_I fell on the ground and scraped my knee on the stone floor. I looked behind me and this woman was holding my chair. An oni, I guess. She had a giant horn sticking out of her head, with a star on it. She was terribly drunk, but that wasn't what scared me. _

_She didn't think. My Third Eye heard no words. Just felt emotion._

_Raw hate._

_She started screaming at me to get out. Men in the bar told me to get out as well. Everything just stopped. It was all quiet, except for their screaming. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. I was just afraid. I just sat there on the ground trying to not cry. So loud. So scary._

_My Third Eye was freaking out. It was shaking and rolling and that scared me almost as much as the men and the oni woman. _

_The oni threw my chair at me. I tried getting away, but she threw the chair so hard that it broke. One of the legs hit me in the back while I was running. _

_I didn't feel it. I was so scared. All I did was run. _

_They chased me. I don't know how I got away from them, especially from the oni. I couldn't go through crowds because it would just make more people see me and chase me, so I was all out in the open. I got to the Palace Gates and ran through them._

_They all stopped then. No one dared go through the gates. _

_I shouldn't have gone. Mother and Father have been right all along. I can't hate them. I hate myself. I hate everyone outside, too. I want them all to go away. I don't need them. I have Satori. Satori and Utsuho and Rin and everyone else here. I hate them._

_~Koishi~_

_*slam*_

I shut the old diary with much more force than needed. I don't want to remember these things. They are exactly why I'm about to do this.

I am Koishi Komeiji. I am the same girl in these diaries and school assignments. I've been here for hours, reading over everything I wrote over the past seventeen years. I still can't believe how stupid I was back then…how immature, how naïve. Until I was fifteen, I never suspected a damn thing. I thought everything Satori told me about isolation and hatred was all a big joke.

It's not.

I have no one. Any friends I made before my Eye opened are gone. No one outside the Palace will accept me. Utsuho and Rin don't really like me; Satori only made them play with me because she thought I was lonely.

Satori…

I'm so sorry. Throughout everything that's happened to us, you are the only one who's never left me. I will always love you, Satori. Out of everything I wrote and now read, that is the only thing that's been absolutely true. I don't want to leave you, Satori. I'm so sorry.

I really love you.

I take in a deep breath and leave my room. It's nighttime here, so the clocks say. I wonder if, on the surface, it's actually daytime. Maybe I'll find out someday.

Satori and I live on the second floor of the Palace and the kitchen is on the third. Our rooms open up to a hallway that leads out to the palace foyer. Huge, arching walls of stone, elaborate patterns everywhere, depictions of past satori on every surface. During the "daytime," the lamps make the palace glow with a comforting light. Now, with the lamps extinguished, I have to grope my way up the grand staircase that connects all five floors.

It's okay though. I've barely left the Palace in years. I know the staircase too well.

The floors are covered in satori-decorated carpeting as well. Even though I'm wearing only my nightgown and socks, any fears I have of making noise are silenced by the rugs. Gripping the banister, I force myself up the stairs.

I reach the third-floor landing. I take a few steps forward and stop. I'm shaking.

I don't want to do this.

_Satori, please help me._

No. Satori can't help me now. Only I can do this. I can't rely on my sister for everything. I have to do this, whether I want to or not.

I step daintily down the hallway, my footfalls again muffled by the thick carpet. I feel the wall and count the doors as I walk by. One, two, three, four doors on the right. I slowly push open the door and wince at the creaking noise. When was the last time Father had these oiled?

I slip into the kitchen and wave my hand over one of the hand-lamps on the counter near the door. Satori and I put them there years ago for times when we got midnight snacks together. The staff never objected, so they've stayed there all this time. I grab the closest one to me and hold it over my head. The kitchen is far more threatening in the dark than I remember it being. The lamplight glimmers off the utensils and pans hanging from the walls and lying on counters. It's a cold, harsh kind of light, one that's telling me to leave and go back to bed.

I plunge onward into the darkness.

I keep the lantern held high, and constantly survey my surroundings. I can't let anyone find me here.

Suddenly, I plunge forward. A piercing _mrooowwwww _shrieks through the air as I crash to the floor. I hear claws skittering against the ground and the catflap on the kitchen door being lifted and falling back in place. Dammit. One of the cats was lurking in the kitchen, probably trying to find a little snack for itself.

I have to be quick. The cat screamed loud enough to wake up half the village. I dash to the back of the room as quickly as I can without tripping on my socks. Finally, I reach my destination: the cutting rack against the far corner. The one Satori and I were always told never to go near, and one we always delighted in seeing who could get closest to without getting caught by the staff.

I lower the lamp to shoulder-height. There are knives on pegs and stands on the walls. Tens of them, all in their own place, and each for a certain purpose. Why would we ever need so many? It's not like one of the maids could carry so many with her or anything.

I place the lantern on the counter and reach for the rack in the very farthest corner. Five knives, their handles longer than my hand, are placed in the large slots in their wooden holders. The one at the top catches my attention; it hasn't been pushed all the way in. The glint of the lantern on the blade extends for inches.

No one needs a knife like this. It's not even a butcher knife. Just a long, cold blade, one that weighs heavily in my hand as I pull it out of the slot.

I hold it up to my face and take a deep breath. I raise it-

No. Not here. I can't do it here.

With the knife in one hand and the lantern in the other, I dash across the stone tiling to the door. I again push it open slowly, extinguish the lamp, and leave it in the kitchen.

I've never been down here. In all seventeen years I've lived, the one rule of Mother and Father's that I've never broken is this.

I am in the basement of the Palace, standing before the entrance to the Hell of Blazing Fires.

I knew it was the entrance, even though I've never been here before. The Palace grows warmer the farther down you go in the floors, hence why our most-used rooms are on the second floor. It's warm, but it's never hot.

Not like this.

I have never before experienced _heat_ like I am now. The hole that guards the Fires reaches so far down that, even though I see no flames or light, the heat rushes at me in a dry, oppressing wave. My nightgown is sticking to my body with sweat, and I almost fear that the knife is going to melt in my hands.

I walk even closer to the entrance. The heat comes out in _wind_, blowing the sweat off my face. I take another deep breath, then force myself to climb down.

The walls are scalding me. I have to not only follow the rough staircase etched out centuries ago, but I have to keep the knife from falling as well. The rocks burn at my hands and fingers and make me want to cry out. I can't, though. Even though I'm so far down, I can't risk waking anyone up.

I climb lower and lower into the earth, and the rock grows hotter and hotter. I doubt I'll be able to walk properly if…after I get out of here.

Years go by in my mind as I go deeper into the hole. Every step is agony, but keeping my feet down is even worse. The air is impossible to breathe, and I'm afraid my lungs will dry up and fail before I can accomplish anything.

I finally reach a landing of sorts. Rather, it's the end of the staircase. From there on, it's only a hole.

Only this hole is not dark. I peer down and feel my eyeballs instantly dry out.

Flames that seem miles down feel like they could reach up and lick my skin away if they wanted to. The heat presses even further against me, moreso than any living thing should be able to survive. It's clouding my mind and fogging my thoughts.

The knife gleams in the flamelight and reminds me why I'm here.

My Third Eye has been hanging limp this whole time, as if my body is giving up the Eye in favor of keeping me alive. Perhaps this will make things easier. The wires lazily float around me, having no energy to coil and uncoil as the usually do.

I grip the Eye tightly. It hurts to do this, like pinching your arm. The Eye is a part of me, has always been a part of me. Part of every satori. I don't think any satori in history has done this. Let me be the first, then.

I raise the knife over my head. The blade shines, almost as if in anticipation of what's to come. The Eye quivers in fear.

I swing down.

One of the cords connecting the Eye to my body stayed in place, just as I'd hoped. It sliced open without resistance.

"_Kyaaaaaaaaaa-!"_

I can hear myself screaming. The cord drops to the earth and blood shoots from the newly-severed ending. I crash to the ground and scream louder as the heat tears away at my body. I can't think. Can't see. So much pain. Living things can't feel this much pain, can they?

Some of the blood from the cord splashes my nightgown. The other is still airborne, thrashing the Eye about in a mad frenzy. I can barely see it in the miasma of pain clouding my vision. I try reaching up, try to hold it again and finish the job. My nails graze the Eye and fall to the ground.

I have no energy to get off the ground. But the longer I stay on the ground, the worse the burning gets. Some force of will deep within me raises my other arm and grabs the cord whizzing through the air. With a pull that sends waves of agony crashing over my body, the Eye hits the ground and momentarily stops. I clutch it in my hands, all my energy channeled into my fingers. I can't let it get away this time.

With the Eye held in place, I raise the hand with the knife once more. I have no strength to lift it, so what was to be a final slash through the wire is instead a feeble poke. The poke still makes me cry out. Blood continues to pour out of the previous wound. I choke back my sobs and raise the blade again. I can only raise it a few inches.

The knife again falls on the wire as it thrashes on the earth. The pain is unbearable, the heat is suffocating. I bring the knife back and forth, back and forth. I am sawing through my own body. The Eye flails and shakes and tries to escape, but I don't let it escape. Tears evaporate on the ground as fast as they fall off my face.

The final fiber separates. More blood, blood everywhere, blood sizzling on the earth as hot as the tears. With a tremendous effort, I drag myself along the ground, clawing at the earth, pulling myself further towards the hole in the ground. The heat rolls over me, waves of sheer _hot_ beating me back. I'm crying enough to extinguish the Blazing Fires down there.

The hole is still a foot away from me. I have no more strength. I collapse on the ground, the Eye bleeding and dying in my grasp.

So close.

Right there.

I have no strength left. I am bleeding my life out on the ground, as two gaping wounds in my body send tsunamis of agony over me. My limbs crash to the earth, scalding-hot rock burning away.

This can't end now.

Not now.

Please.

I am going to die. I am going to die, alone, bloodied and burned. And this calms my mind. It's going to be over soon. The pain will leave and I will be gone.

This thought gives me strength.

I draw back my arm. My body shrieks in response, screaming at me to stop. I continue, choking through the pain.

I exhaust the last of my energy in this one motion. My arm thrusts forward, my hand curled tightly into a fist. I punch the Eye and it shoots across the ground. It reaches the edge of the pit.

It teeters.

It sits on the edge.

It falls.

I hear a scream in my mind, growing fainter and fainter as the eye falls further into the Fires, eventually stopping altogether.

My head crashes down on my arm. I'm done. I have nothing left. I am going to die soon.

I will die a free girl, with no Third Eye anymore.

_Satori?_

_Satori, is that you?_

_No, of course it's not you. You wouldn't be down here._

…_I love you, Satori. _

_Please remember me. _

I pass out with a smile on my lips.

"K-Koishi?"

A sudden grip on my shoulders. It hurts. Please stop that, whoever you a-

It hurts.

I can feel hurt.

I'm alive.

"K…Koishi…" A woman's voice slices through my sluggish mind. She sounds like she's crying, or trying to hold back the tears. Eventually, she breaks.

"Koishi! "

I feel her weight on my chest as she sobs and wails. She brings me to her in a tight embrace, one I have no strength to escape. I have no energy to lift my eyelids and see who she is, but her voice is familiar.

"Mother! Mother, where's Mother! Father!"

Mother and Father…

"Oh, dammit, they're not here, right…Koishi!"

I know her…

"Koishi, if you can hear me at all, please do something!"

So familiar…

"P-please, Koishi! This is the first time you've moved in a year…please do something!"

A year…? When did I…?

"…Koishi?"

…that's who she is.

_*sniff*_ "You…you aren't awake are you. It's…it's just me, I-I…I'm being delusional. That's….that's all it…_*sniff*_…that's all it is…!"

She breaks down sobbing again.

Somewhere, a miracle grants me strength.

"Sa…"

Her sobs stop.

"…to…"

I hear a chair scrape along the ground, closer to me.

"…ri."

"K…Koishiiii!" Satori's wails my name out, and brings me together with her in a tight hug. I can feel her cool tears along my face, but have no energy to do anything in response. "Y-you're really alive! You're really awake! Koishi!"

I don't know what happened here, or where I am, or how I escaped the Hell of Blazing Fires.

All I knows is that Satori loves me, and that I love her.

And I know this without the Third Eye.


End file.
